Each year millions of Americans make the decision to pursue a college education to improve their skill sets, boost their earning potential and transform their life circumstances. Yet almost 1 in 5 students leaves empty-handed after investing precious time and valuable resources. And many who amass student loan debt are crippled by the burden of repayment.
In 2009, IHEP sought to help remedy the problem of associate’s degree completion among students who stop-out through Project Win-Win. Another multi-state reverse transfer optimization initiative, Credit When It’s Due, also helped thousands more students earn their degrees.
Together, Project Win-Win and Credit When It’s Due strategies—collectively referred to as degree reclamation-- have been implemented at 556 institutions in 17 states, producing over 20,000 new associate’s degrees.
Degree reclamation—a combination of evidence-based and equity-focused strategies—helps institutions reengage the “some college, no degree” population, provide these students with targeted supports to aid in their completion of associate’s degrees, and award degrees when sufficient credits are earned.
The Potential of Degree Reclamation: A Path to Reclaiming the Nation’s Unrecognized Students and Degrees offers a new vision for scaling degree reclamation nationwide. Degree reclamation is a transformative completion strategy that can help millions of college students achieve their dream of earning a degree, especially underserved students.